State police expected the worst when they ventured into the wild township of Aguililla to serve a single warrant. Commanders sent 42 officers in five trucks.
It was not enough. More than 30 suspected drug cartel gunmen were waiting for them on Monday, some in vehicles that were apparently armored, prosecutors in Mexico’s western Michoacan State said.
Officials said the gunmen opened up on the police convoy with .50 caliber sniper rifles and AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles.
Photo: Reuters
Thirteen officers were killed, some of their bodies still inside the patrol trucks when the vehicles were set on fire. Nine other officers were wounded.
The attack — the worst on Mexican law enforcement in years — came in a state where violence blamed on drug gangs has jumped in the past few months.
Authorities said the convoy was ambushed as it sought to enforce a judicial order at a home in El Aguaje, a town in the municipality of Aguililla, which is the reputed birthplace of Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, leader of the hyper-violent Jalisco New Generation cartel.
“No attack on the police will go unpunished, and this was a cowardly, devious attack, because they laid an ambush in this area of the road,” Michoacan Governor Silvano Aureoles said.
Images published in Mexican media showed vehicles burning in the middle of a highway and messages apparently signed by Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most powerful and rising cartels.
Aureoles said their authenticity was under investigation.
Later in the day, an Associated Press journalist saw two gutted patrol cars at the entrance to El Aguaje surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings. Two police trucks were towed away.
Streets were nearly empty as people apparently decided to stay indoors after the violent events.
After the attack, the area in western Mexico’s so-called “hot lands” was reinforced by federal and state security forces, which set up checkpoints to hunt for the assailants.
Michoacan, an important avocado-growing state, has seen a spike in violence that has brought back memories of the bloodiest days of Mexico’s war on drug cartels between 2006 and 2012.
Besides avocado orchards, Michoacan for decades has been known for marijuana plantations and making methamphetamine.
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